Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to image generation hardware, particularly including printers and most particularly including non-impact printers. The present invention is concerned with a generation of a particular new form of encoded information--transition-encoded font image information--which is used in the generation of a font image. The manner by which this new information is so used for font image generation will be explained somewhat simplistically in the present specification. A more sophisticated teaching of the preferred manner of image generation transpiring from the selfsame identical transition-encoded font image information is particularly taught in each of the companion patent applications. However, for purposes of understanding the present invention it is only necessary to simplistically understand the use of transition-encoded information in the generation of images.
The present invention is particularly concerned with what, exactly, this new form "transition-encoded" information is, and how it is derived. It will be shown that the new form "transition-encoded" information is derived by transforming, in and by a new process called "decompression", certain conventional run-length-encoded font image information. Both the run-length-encoded information which is "decompressed", and the "transition-encoded" information into which it is "decompressed", represent the images of characters and of character fonts which are generatable by an image generator. The reason that the transformation, or "decompression", which is the subject of the present invention and of this disclosure is performed is because run-length-encoded information is not directly usable to control the marker of an image generator, whereas this new form transition-encoded font information into which the run-length-encoded information is efficiently transformed will be shown to be highly effective for controlling the marker, in real time, to actually generate the image of a particularly chosen character at a particularly chosen font.